Have a More Productive Work Day

Everyone has probably realized that the first several hours of your day have a major impact on how productive you can be throughout the entire day. Starting a work day off on the wrong foot makes it difficult to get on track and accomplish everything up to your full potential. For this reason, it is important to find a routine and strategy that makes the most of your morning, and sets you up for future success throughout the rest of your day. Here are some tips on how you can set yourself up for a more productive work day…

Find a morning routine that works for you

First of all, it’s important to realize that everyone is different, when it comes to how well they function in the morning. For this reason, you’ve got to find something that works for you, specifically. Play around with different ways to get ready in the morning. For some people, getting up earlier and having more time to themselves before going into their job is something that works well, while other people may prefer to get an extra half-hour of sleep. Either way, the ideal is to plan out ways for you to have a smoother morning.

Don’t be late

When you show up late, it throws your entire day off balance. Now, instead of being able to take a measured approach to the rest of your day, you’ll constantly be playing catch up. Not only will this decrease your productivity, because you have less time to do the things that you had hoped to complete, but it also means that there is a high chance that your work quality will decrease. When you give yourself less time to do something, innovation and out-of-the-box thinking are difficult to accomplish, because those things usually take time to develop on a project.

Try a quick team-building exercise

If you work with a team of people, then a large part of how your day goes depends on the chemistry throughout that team. For this reason, it is beneficial to do something to foster that chemistry early in the day, in order to foster the tone for the rest of the day. To help in this endeavor, try doing a quick team-building exercise in the morning. This could be as simple as chatting with everybody about how their weekend was, or even a game or word-storming exercise. Either way, the main point is to make sure that there is connection and conversation throughout the team, which works out the teamwork kinks at the start of the day.

Make a realistic plan for the day

It gets easier to pace out your work when you are aware of the things that you want to accomplish in the day. For this reason, you should always make a plan of what it is you’re going to do in the morning, before any intensive work begins. When you organize how the day is going to go, it makes it easier to see the finish line, which gives you an idea of how much work should be done in each increment of time. Of course, your plan shouldn’t be made in cement and never broken. It can be counterproductive to be so beholden to your plan that it can’t adapt and change throughout the day. However, even having one makes it easier to set realistic goals and benchmarks.

Do something that makes you happy

You should be going into every work day with a good mood, if you want the best results from yourself. The mood you are in when you walk into work has an impact on how others will work with you, and is probably going to impact your ability to accomplish personal tasks, as well. For this reason, always make sure that you put time aside in the morning to do something that makes you happy. Even if it’s just taking a walk or reading a little bit of a good book. Add a little you-time in the morning to put your mind at ease and set your day off in the right way.